Tag: busan

Senator Chun Byung-Hun, the representative member of the Democratic Party as well as the president of the Korean e-Sports Association, called out to the larger gaming corporations for an active stance on the gaming regulations.

Senator Chun paid a visit to the G-Star convention center on the 16th and held a press conference in which he quoted “the larger gaming corporations of Korea must voice out in order to rid the public of misunderstandings regarding games.”

Senator Chun commented: “I’ve heard from the G-Star related reports that there were an increase in the presence of foreign developers and a decrease in that of our domestic developers. I feel that this may be credited to the recent wave of unfortunate news regarding the gaming industry. However, it is my belief that we must not conform to and be affected by such waves.”

Furthermore, he commented: “It is especially important in such times as these that leading gaming corporations take the initiative and take action in order to be the role model for other smaller gaming businesses to follow. The larger corporations must act as a big brother figure to the other businesses and set up an ‘umbrella’ for others to partake within.”

Senator Chun believes that the recent regulations have occurred due to the false stereotypes and misunderstandings for games in general. He calls for gaming industry to overcome these recent circumstances by facing them head on, and to stand up proudly in being the leading industry in the feature economy.

Regarding the recent gaming addiction issues, Senator Chun commented that “the issue will no longer exist if children are taught the correct gaming usages in their schools and homes, and when games steadily become a household culture. In fact, putting a veil called addiction on top of gaming will only bring social side-effects.” He commented further saying: “it has come to my attention that opinions are varying greatly among the different parties. I will try my best in order to bring about a just conclusion to this addiction issue.”

Held in Busan, G-Star 2013 opened on the last 14th and came to a close on the 17th. Although there were worries regarding the fewer expected numbers of attendees, G-Star 2013 came through once again flocking up to 188,707.

Larger B2B, Overseas buyers increase 66%

Opened and operated under the Korean Internet Digital Entertainment Association (K-IDEA), this year’s G-Star continued the tradition of separating the B2C and B2B section of the event into different buildings.

Using the entire building to its own, G-Star’s largest ever B2B showed an increase of 66% in the number of international buyers. The group in charge of organizing and finalizing the outcome of G-Star convention look forward to seeing a dramatic increase in the statistics, and more detailed numbers are to be announced.

The G-Star ‘Game Industry Recruitment Expo’ had turned up with 1,148 attendees. Initiated and backed by Nexon, ChangYouKorea, KOG, and 20 others, the expo had a successful turnout despite the recent grim news of the Korean gaming industry.

Over 180,000 attendees

G-Star 2013 had a total of 188,707 attendees over the span of 4 days. With a 12 % decrease compared to last year, the first day brought in a total of 32,787 visitors. Then with a 2.22% decrease, the second day brought in a total of 38,654 visitors. K-IDEA’s Kim Jin Suk commented that this may be due to the fact that the date for the G-Star had been changed since last year, with this year being opened during the national high school exit exam day.

The day that had the most fruitful gathering was the 3rd day with an increase of 10.8% compared to last year, totaling up to 68,266 visitors. The last day had a decent turnout also with 49,000 (estimated) visitors.

Attendee number maintained despite the cutback on the B2C and the recent political news

With the numerous restrictions set upon the gaming industry through this year such as ‘Shutdowns,’ ‘Less than 1% revenue,’ and ‘game addiction restrictions,’ there were many talks amongst the gaming industry that regarded their doubtful stance on attending this year’s G-Star. WeMade’s former president, Nam Goong-Hun had previously stated his boycott of G-Star via SNS, and many other developers followed his lead.

G-Star 2013 took place nevertheless. However, with G-Star veterans such as Gamevil, Netmarble, Neowiz Games, NC Soft, Webzen, WeMade, and Com2US missing from the list of developers for this year’s G-Star, many worried about this year’s turnout.

Despite all the worries, this year’s G-Star flourished nonetheless. Many were sighted waiting in line outside the convention center starting on Friday night in order to get into the weekend conventions. The scale of the event became large enough to spark the interest of the local police, who stayed on site throughout the day, helping the convention run smoothly and safely.

K-IDEA’s Kim Jin Suk commented: “Many paid a visit to this year’s G-Star despite many worries regarding the decrease in the size of B2C. We feel that we have the history of G-Star to thank for this year’s turnout. Even E3, one of the biggest gaming conventions in the world, had its slump around 2006 but came back to its former glory last year. Likewise, we believe that once all the issues regarding the gaming industry is solved that G-Star will be able to grow once again.”

The detailed blueprint of booth placements for G-Star 2013 has been released.

Korea Internet Development Entertainment Association’s (K-IDEA) G-Star committee has announced the finalization of registrations and has released the booth placement blue prints this last 30th.

Main game corporations already placed in the B2C corner

From looking at the released blueprint, one can see the design of the corporations that had requested for more than 80 booths surrounding the booths of smaller companies.

Of the larger corporations, companies such as Blizzard, DAUM, Nexon, Wargaming are the easily eye-catching, and a large portion of the rest of them consist of hardware or game-related companies. On the other hand, the absence of some very well-known companies are also very easy to notice: NC Soft, Neowiz Games, NHN Entertainment, and WeMade.

Blizzard, DAUM, Nexon, and Wargaming just about wrap up the companies that had requested for more than 60 booths in this year’s B2C corner. NURI Star Ducks has requested for 40 booths, and Nintendo, Blueside, NeoCyon have requested less than 30 booths. It is also interesting to notice that a group of companies that deal with educational games & apps and board games have collectively requested for 80 booths.

One of G-Star’s outstanding features is the design of placing more than 10 companies together in one hall. Arcade games, Korea Creative Content Agency, Busan Gaming, and Global Mobile Hub Center have all been placed in the same hall, and has been planned to showcase anywhere from 10 to 30 in each booths.

B2B grown by 41% compared to last year, biggest yet in Asia

The size of the B2B corner has increased significantly this year. This may mean that new titles that will not be showcased to users will be dealt with in these business scenes.

G-Star 2013’s B2B corner is composed of 1,026 booths, largest size yet. With an increase of 41% since last year’s 726 booths, companies such as Nexon, Neowiz, NHN Entertainment, Kakao, ActoSoft, SmileGate, CJ E&M NetMarble, and MGame will be participating.

There is a high possibility that many yet to be released online games will be shown in B2B rather than in B2C this year, such as: an online golf game being developed with CryEngine3 <Project OG>, Softnix’s FPS game <Tar>, and GalaxyGate’s <Legend of Fighter>. New smartphone titles may also be announced in the B2B rather than in B2C.

All the while, many overseas companies such as Tencent, ChangYou, SEGA, Ubisoft, ChuKong, and Gameforge will be participating, and this year’s G-Star 2013 will actually be Asia’s largest global business market event.

The latest buzz among the recent news is the proposal to attend this year’s upcoming G-Star convention dressed in funeral attires in order to represent opposition to the Four Addictions bill.

On the day of the parliamentary assembly (31st), a certain community website received a posting titled “Cosplay this year’s G-Star.” This posting contained an image titled “RIP Korean Gaming Industry” along with a proposal to attend this year’s G-Star in funeral attires.

Originally posted at 5 PM on the 31st, this posting quickly spread to many other popular community sites and became viral amongst the community. The individuals who read the postings had various statements to make, such as: ‘This is urgent. We need to consider this as an emergency,’ ‘G-Star is meant to promote gaming, but gaming will be given a funeral in this year’s convention,’ ‘This act of protest need to be participated by the officials rather than by the gamers.’

Each of the community sites got their fair share of various suggestions on the methods of the protest. Some suggested attending the event wearing tags that display the G-Star logo in a funeral frame, much like a funeral would have the picture of the deceased in a frame. Many compared this phenomenon to the previous similar occurrence that had made significant dent in the cartoon and animation industry.

The gamers’ actions are acts of opposition to the bill that had been proposed on April 30th, by Senator Shin Eu-Jin of the Saenuri Party. In effect, the bill would place gaming among the four great addictions along with alcohol, gambling, and drugs.

Korea Internet & Digital Entertainment Association (K-IDEA) has publicly announced that the current rumors on the G-STAR crisis is unfounded and that there will be no issues.

K-IDEA’s director Sung-Gon Kim held a press conference on the 8th to describe the current status of G-STAR. Kim said that “G-STAR 2013 is in preparation with no critical issues, and that the rumors on the crisis hold no truth.”

G-STAR is being prepared in a larger scale than ever before

“We realize that there has been many worries since the beginning of the year regarding this year’s G-STAR due to the numerous regulation issues. However, G-STAR 2013 has grown in both size and quality since last year, and K-IDEA has been working tirelessly in order to bring about a successful G-STAR. An official public announcement will be made in the near future,” said Kim.

According to Kim, G-STAR has grown in size since last year’s convention. This year’s funds for the convention have reached last year’s amount due to the help of numerous sponsors, despite the sponsor rumors. Therefore, there are no financial issues in G-STAR preparations.

Furthermore, appearance of many overseas companies have been confirmed, fitting of G-STAR’s “international game show” title. The B2B corner of the global business section has had large numbers of applications from overseas companies, indicative of growth since last year. B2C corner will also not be a disappointment, featuring large numbers of various games.

“With the number of overseas companies participating in this year’s event, we aim to make G-STAR a hub for the Asian gaming industry and become a spearhead for the creative economy. Although games in Korea are still regarded with less respect than compared to overseas, Korean gaming industry is appreciated and respected overseas and we are confident that it (G-STAR) will be a big success,” explained Kim.

2014 G-STAR, we will no longer depend on the usual customers

Director Kim has also explained to the reporters the future outlook for G-STAR. He wishes the yearly event to be a festival for not only the usual customers, but also for companies of smaller sizes with potential in the field.

K-IDEA plans to significantly increase their support for smaller game companies starting next year. Even now, they are working on discovering smaller game companies and creating manuals purposed to help them participate in G-STARs.

Many plans for company support are under preparation, such as networking opportunities for smaller companies and G-STAR participation funds depending on the company sizes. In other words, unlike the past G-STARs where they had to depend on the participation of large corporations, they aim to change G-STAR to be a global business hub that also allows for opportunities for smaller companies to meet their customers.

“The plan is to escape from the format that makes G-STAR dependent on specific companies. The majority of past G-STARs’ revenues were from participation of usual customers and companies, and we realize that the worries around this G-STAR are based off of this phenomenon. However, starting next year, we plan to support smaller companies as well as the large corporations in order to provide networking opportunities for both the companies and their customers,” stated Kim.